As Argentina and Spain prepare to face off, all eyes on the arcs of their superstars
Christian Science Monitor · C · trust 47/100
| Joan Monfort/AP/File 20-year-old Lionel Messi helps bathe baby Lamine Yamal during a photo session for charity in Barcelona, Spain, in 2007. Mr. Yamal, now 19, will lead Spain's national team against Mr. Messi and Argentina in the World Cup final Sunday. Loading...
An extraordinary photograph is making the rounds on social media in the days before the World Cup final Sunday. In it, an awkward, mop-haired Lionel Messi, age 20, is doing charity work for the human rights organization UNICEF.
Beside him, in a small plastic washtub, sits a mere-months-old pudding of an infant with a full head of hair and a plump-cheeked look of innocent bemusement.
The baby is Lamine Yamal. On Sunday, 19 years after he first met the greatest soccer player in the world in a paddling pool, Spain’s young superstar will play Mr. Messi for the World Cup trophy and the chance to lay claim to his vaunted place in the soccer universe.
The World Cup final on Sunday is booked. But much focus will be on how the match highlights the changing of the guard at the pinnacle of soccer, between Argentine elder statesman Lionel Messi and Spanish prodigy Lamine Yamal.
Sunday’s World Cup final is about more than Mr. Messi and Mr. Yamal, of course. There is the incomparable organism of the Spanish team, so technical and well-drilled that opponents can feel like simply getting possession of the ball is worthy of a victory parade. And there is Argentina, a team built around its star player and often seeming to take on his character – ambling about the field with no great urgency until the decisive blow comes, rapier-quick.
Yet it is impossible to separate this final from its two greatest players. Mr. Messi is the aged-but-unquestioned emperor of the sport, and Mr. Yamal is the man most likely to fill soccer’s imminent Messi-shaped hole.
How they got here – to the final, and to this moment in their lives – speaks to perhaps the most indelible theme of this tournament: modern soccer as a truly global game. The show they will put on in Sunday’s match will likely speak to two opposite ways of achieving success.
Maria Lysaker/Reuters Spain's Lamine Yamal dribbles past France's Maxence Lacroix during their semifinal match in Arlington, Texas, July 14, 2026. But for both, the essential binding element is Barcelona, where Mr. Yamal grew up and Mr. Messi came of age playing for its world-famous soccer club.
The image of charity from 19 years ago is not just a curiosity; it also points to a story. Mr. Yamal grew up in Rocafonda, one of the most impoverished neighborhoods in Spain. To this day, he celebrates goals by making a hand gesture of the number 304 – the last three digits of Rocafonda’s postal code.
His two given names come from two men who helped his family when it fell on hard times after he was born. (His full name is Lamine Yamal Nasraoui Ebana.) His mother, who gave birth to Mr. Yamal at 16, hails from Equatorial Guinea. His father is Moroccan, and the Moroccan national team desperately tried to recruit him as a youth.
Had he joined the Atlas Lions, he would have been the unchallenged pride leader. In Spain, he is merely a platinum cog in the world’s most devastating soccer machine.
France came into this World Cup as the favorite, boasting a forward line bordering on legendary. Against Spain in the semifinal, France didn’t have its first shot on target until the 82nd minute. At this World Cup, Spain has conceded one goal in seven games.
The Spanish midfield in particular could be mistaken for a collection of symphony conductors, minus the tailcoats. As Fabián Ruiz and Rodri float effortlessly around the field, playing passes with an unearthly rhythm, the strings of the sport vibrate into something sublime. The best opponents can sometimes do is watch and admire.
Mariana Nedelcu/Reuters Fans celebrate with flares in Buenos Aires, Argentina, after the country's national team beat England 2-1 to advance to the World Cup final, July 15, 2026. Which is good for Mr. Messi, because he does a lot of watching. An analysis by The Athletic found that Mr. Messi has spent 87% of this World Cup walking or standing.
But that is the beauty of Mr. Messi. Speaking of the 13-year-old Messi who arrived at Barcelona’s youth team in 2000, teammate Víctor Vázquez told ESPN: “He had a different speed, a much faster way of thinking and a way of interpreting the game before receiving the ball, always keeping his head up. He was completely different from everything we had.”
Small and often overlooked, Messi gained fame and success by seeing and playing the game differently. Rather than bombing up and down the pitch, he reads and probes, instinctively knowing when to attack and how to slip through the smallest fissures in a defense, as though lathered in axle grease. At World Cup 2026, he is tied for the most goals (8) and is second in assists (4). Argentina’s team is largely oriented to stay solid and let him do his thing.
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And in this World Cup filled with late goals and stirring comebacks, Argentina has been the clear drama king. They have scored 11 of their 19 goals after the 79th minute. If they win Sunday, they will be the first team to repeat as World Cup champions since Brazil in 1958 and 1962.
Sunday, it will be the Spanish metronome versus the Argentina miracle machine, the old Leo versus the young lion.
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